Vincent Pecora, a professor of English and director of the Humanities Consortium at UCLA, will address "Religion in the European Enlightenment" at a Brigham Young University Area Focus Lecture on Thursday, Jan. 8, at 11 a.m. in 238 Herald R. Clark Building.
Pecora's research interests focus on late 19th- and 20th-century literature, modern intellectual history and literary theory.
He has published "Nation and Identities: Classic Readings," an edited anthology of historical documents focusing on the various meanings of "national identity" in the West from the Reformation to the present; "Households of the Soul," a study of the household as fact and metaphor in anthropology, literature, and literary theory in the modern period; and "Self and Form in Modern Narrative," an analysis of the rise of modernism in the context of the rationalized society.
Pecora, who joined the UCLA faculty in 1985, is also the director of the Center for Modern and Contemporary Studies, a research center devoted to 19th- and 20th-century society and culture.
The Humanities Consortium, which he directs, administers an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship program.
Pecora has received several awards for his work, including an NEH Fellowship for 2001–02 and an Excellence in Academia Award from the Young President's Organization in 1999.
He received a bachelor's degree from Brown University in 1975 and his master's and doctoral degrees from Columbia University in 1983.
The lecture is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Europe and the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies. Other event information may be accessed online at http://kennedy.byu.edu.